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00:00Can you tell which of these is the Pixel and which one is the iPhone? The profile is very similar
00:07Jeez
00:09Beautiful. Hey guys, I'm Tom of Tech Jab
00:11And this is the new Google Pixel 9 Pro XL and it feels kind of weird making this video in August
00:17Normally we get new pixels around October time
00:20but they've actually
00:21Jumped ahead of the new iPhone launch at the end of September and then you snapdragon 8 gen 4 chip and the subsequent phones coming
00:27So what's new with the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL which I have here
00:31Is it actually a big upgrade over the 8 Pro and should you buy one?
00:35I do have to stress though. This video is not sponsored in any way team pixel
00:40Google have no expectation or input on this review video
00:43This is 100% my opinion and except for the YouTube ads at the start of the video. I'm not making any money on this
00:49I
00:53Let me give you the headlines and we have a fresh new look we have thinner bezels a slightly bigger screen
00:59That's also brighter. We get the new tensor g4 chip 16 gigs of RAM up from 12. We have beefier speakers
01:06We have a longer battery life. Yay and faster charging and in the camera department
01:11We have an improved ultra wide with a wider aperture
01:13we have a new selfie camera bumped from 10 up to 42 megapixels and with a wider field of view and
01:19Of course a whole bunch of new AI and camera features including add me which lets you literally add
01:25Yourself or the photographer to the shot that they're not in by taking a couple of photos and having it superimposed on top of each
01:31Other what is real anymore? Who knows?
01:36You've got video boost which also unlocks a new 8k resolution option
01:40So I'm gonna spend a good portion of this video talking about the camera and everything you can do with it
01:46And it's a hundred pounds more expensive than last year, although
01:50Relatively, it is still a hundred fifty quid cheaper than a s24 ultra and a hundred pounds less than an iPhone 15 Pro Max
01:55So still just a little bit cheaper than the flagship rivals out there
01:59But not significantly and it is also a hundred pound price bump over last year's pixel 8 Pro
02:05You can still get a pixel 9 Pro, which is the same price 999. The main difference is the screen size
02:11We're also getting a relatively bigger battery slightly faster charging, but that's about it
02:15The difference between the 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL is really just a screen size
02:18Do you want a 6.3 or a 6.8 inch phone?
02:22So the first thing you'll notice this year is this refresh design and side-by-side with the 8 Pro
02:28Here's what I made earlier gone are the curvy edges around the back gone is the wraparound jewelry Laforge camera module
02:34Instead the pixel 9 Pro XL gives us completely flat edges with a glossy metal finish and more stuck-on
02:40Rounded camera bump, which is about half as thick as the bloody phone itself
02:44But I do like the look and it's nice to have a phone that doesn't lump all the cameras in one corner and it doesn't
02:49Wobble on the table similar camera setup though
02:52we've got the main the ultra wide and the telephoto alongside a
02:54Spectral light sensor for the sort of white balance and also the thermometer which I've used once I think and don't know why we have
03:02Surprisingly though, the speakers are much better which are louder. There's less distortion at higher volumes
03:13Although I do find myself accidentally covering the speaker grill when I'm holding in landscape to watch a show or play a game
03:18So I need to either adjust my grip or flip it around. They've also finally updated the USB port to support display out
03:25This is a first for a pixel and it means you can mirror to external screens or a pair of smart glasses like these x-reels
03:30And along with face unlocking we now have a new ultrasonic fingerprint reader instead of optical
03:36Which I found to be quite a bit quicker and more reliable
03:39Upfront Google have squeezed in a bigger 6.8 inch screen up from 6.7 last year and you can just about see the difference if you
03:47Have them side-by-side
03:48It does feel bigger to hold although that's mostly due to having that flat rather than curved back still gorilla glass fixtures too though on
03:54Both sides same as before
03:56However, the 9 Pro XL is 0.3 millimeters thicker and 8 grams heavier tipping the scales at 221 grams
04:03Which and this can't be a coincidence is the exact same weight as an iPhone 15 Pro Max
04:11Hmm still it passed the most important test my wife Sarah who is an avid pixel user
04:15She's been using the 6 and 7 and 8. So I handed it over and her first reaction was
04:20I like it, which is a very positive sign. So as far as the wife test goes 10 a 10
04:26And finally no new phone launch will be complete without some tasty new colors and both the 9 Pro and the 9 Pro XL come in
04:32Porcelain the one I have here obsidian black basically a hazily green and a rose quartz very fancy
04:38But let's talk about this screen which Google call their super actua or super actua
04:44Screen, so it's a point one inch bigger screen, but more importantly, it's also brighter Google say that the peak brightness
04:51That's the peak maximum on a 5% window has gone from 2400 nits to 3000 nits
04:56And full-screen HDR brightness has gone from 1600 to 2000 nits
04:59Although in my tests for both SDR and HDR I measured around a 2 to 300 nit boost
05:05It's not a night and day difference, but it does make it easier to use outside. Everything just looks a bit punchier and more vibrant
05:11However, despite the improved cooling and the slightly more efficient chip and also the brighter screen that after just a couple of minutes
05:17I'm using the pixel outside in the Sun taking photos the screen massively dimmed
05:21I couldn't get it any brighter and I actually made it really hard to use
05:24Literally just after a couple of minutes, but of course most phones including iPhones do this as well
05:29they've also massively improved the viewing angles the a pro goes really off color with a kind of green tinge when it's off-angle and just
05:36Generally, I found the nine pros colors a little bit warmer and more natural
05:40I like it, although I would recommend changing the default high resolution to full resolution
05:45It'll have a small impact on the battery, but I just find it a little soft and low res out of the box
05:51Unfortunately, both the 8 and the 9 series have the same
05:54240 Hertz PWM dimming and for context the s24 ultra and the iPhone are around 480 Hertz
06:00Which is still considered not great and this flicker can cause eye strain with some people very sensitive to it
06:06Now in some ways the Achilles heel of these pixel phones has always been the processor the Google tensor
06:12Which is built on Samsung's Exynos architecture
06:14They've got progressively a little bit better and better each year
06:17But it's just never kept up with the competition from Apple and Snapdragon particularly in terms of performance now
06:22Google have always said that they favor efficiency and AI performance over, you know, raw horsepower for gaming
06:28But then the battery life's always been pretty terrible on pixel phones as well. And a lot of the AI is done in the cloud
06:34Anyway, so tensor g4 this year g2 g3 g4. Is it any better?
06:40Well to get nerdy just for a second this new g4 actually has eight cores
06:44One fewer than last year, but they are the newer cortex x4s well in x3
06:49We have the same Mali 715 graphics, but we do now have 16 gigs of RAM versus 12
06:54Although it does appear to be a slightly slower type of RAM
06:56what does this all add up to well in Geekbench 6 the 9 Pro XL is 14% faster in single core and
07:035% in multi-core not very exciting and switching over to the 3d mark graphics test
07:08The best loop score is less than 5% higher than last year
07:12However, what is more interesting is the low score which is 16% higher the pixel 9 pros have a new heatsink
07:19Which really is doing the heavy lifting here in place of a much faster chip
07:22But it is giving us this more stable performance and it is worth noting that the regular pixel 9 doesn't have this new design
07:29Google say the g4 will make apps launch 17% faster and web browsing 20% faster
07:35But the tensor g4 is still very much in the championship
07:37Whereas the snapdragon 8 gen 3 in the Apple a 17 Pro is in the Premier League and they're both about to be updated with
07:43The a18 and the snapdragon 8 gen 4 so this is gonna fall even further behind in the next few months
07:49But does any of this actually matter?
07:51well
07:51Most of the time no not really in fact the pixel still feels like one of the fastest and most responsive phones in
07:57Everyday use thanks to the stock Android 14 software
08:00But at the same time it feels just as fast as the pixel 8 Pro and it still struggles in high-end games
08:06I fight up some Genshin impact which can actually get a flawless or near flawless 60 FPS maxed out on the current iPhone and
08:13Snapdragon rivals, but here I'm still getting frequent dips below 20 for most games
08:18You'll be absolutely fine, but I'd still say the pixel 9 Pro is not a hardcore gamers phone
08:22But for everyone else the benchmark scores don't really mean that much. It is still incredibly fast and a joy to use and
08:29Even though it's not significantly faster. It does last longer
08:33Yes, the battery life has been improved it shares basically the same size cell as the 8 Pro
08:38But have a look at this YouTube video time-lapse
08:40I made the pixel 7 Pro and 8 Pro are within five minutes of each other just shy of 12 hours
08:45But the 9 Pro XL just keeps going finally kicking the bucket four hours later
08:50The f24 ultra and the iPhone do still come out on top, but it's putting up a good fight
08:55And it is a big improvement Google's also boosted the charging speeds with the pixel 9 series
09:00It's actually a little bit different across all four phones
09:02They're launching they got the 9 9 Pro 9 Pro XL and the pixel 9 Pro fold
09:06But essentially the pixel 9 Pro XL has the fastest charging for both wide and wireless
09:11But still you will need the fast chargers to actually take advantage of that or else you won't see any difference
09:15And it does not support Qi 2
09:17It's still hard to get my head around this though because the tensor chip has got progressively better
09:23And yes, it's a tiny bit faster a bit more stable much longer battery life in some use cases
09:28Which is great to see but it still still falls some way behind the rivals which are themselves about to be updated
09:34It's like celebrating it being a bit less rubbish than it was before and the expectation next year is that they'll switch to a new
09:41Architecture built by TSMC rather than Samsung so the pixel 10 and whatever g5 chip
09:47They use could be actually a more significant upgrade
09:49So if you're on the fence about this and you do care about having the best performance
09:54Could be worth waiting another year now for me and probably you as well
09:58There are four main reasons to get a pixel. You've got stock Android. It's the first to get updates
10:02It's slightly better value or at least a little bit cheaper than rivals and it's also the camera
10:08So what's new this year? Well hardware wise not a whole lot on the back
10:12We have the same triple lens setup
10:14The only hardware change is the ultra wide camera which now has a f1.7 aperture versus f2 last year
10:20So a little bit wider better in low-light and we have a new 42 megapixel selfie camera with a significantly wider field of view
10:27To give you an idea of the difference in field of view. Let's switch it over to the 9 Pro XL. Boom
10:32Okay, here we are 9 Pro XL and I'm holding it in the exact same position
10:37Everything's the same but you can see a little bit more over here a little bit more
10:41Over here both the 8 Pro and the 9 Pro XL can shoot up to 4k 60 with the selfie camera
10:46Straight away as I'm looking at the screen as I can see that wider field of view on the new one
10:51But what do you think in terms of the quality? That's the problem. You can never compare
10:55Phone cameras based on the screens themselves on the phones because the screens are different
10:59So you have to turn them off look on a laptop and that's what I'll be doing
11:02In fact, I've just take it off my battery test there which took 17 hours to record
11:09Thankfully with a time-lapse now, I would say that photo quality isn't drastically different
11:13In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to tell them apart in some cases aside from the wider field of view
11:18There is a little less of the over processed over sharpened look and also noticeably less noise in lower light
11:24What I would say though is for low-light selfies use screen illumination, which is insanely bright
11:29But I find it produces much nicer much more realistic looking night mode selfies
11:35Okay
11:35Let's switch around to the back and I want to stick with these comparative shots for the moment
11:39Versus last year's 8 Pro because I think it's needed in order to really see what's different this year because it is subtle
11:46Firstly I found the colors on the new 9 Pro XL to be just a little bit more natural and true-to-life
11:51My black t-shirt is black here rather than dark blue
11:55The white balance is much more aggressive on the 9 Pro at diffusing that bright orange and balancing the colors across the scene
12:01Dare I say it's leaning toward more of an iPhone aesthetic. I think a full comparison is needed
12:07Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss it
12:09The thing is though the main camera sensor resolution aperture all the same
12:12The bigger difference though is with long-range zoom
12:15It still maxes out at their 30 times super res zoom as they call it
12:19But there does appear to be significantly more detail on a 9 Pro shot of old JC here
12:24Let me show you another one here zooming in on the side of the pub and going up to 30 times
12:29There is a lot more detail in the text
12:31So for me the pixel has always excelled at photography including portraits and while the differences from the 8 to the 9 series isn't anything too
12:39Revolutionary it does produce a nicer cleaner less noisy more natural shot. It's like I don't know 15% better
12:48Let's go back to video though
12:49This is Wells Cathedral and I'm filming this at 4k 30 with the 8 Pro and 9 Pro XL
12:54Very similar in terms of quality image stabilization with a 1x lens here
12:59But punching in colors are again a bit more natural like we saw with photos
13:03But particularly when zoomed in all the way up to the 20 times neither were perfect
13:09But the 9 Pro XL is much smoother. So it's a bit niche but for super long-range video. The 9 Pro does have better stabilization
13:19Now you thought this video couldn't get any better right well come with me to the Taylor Swift
13:23It was tall concert at Wembley Stadium here in London
13:26I went with mrs. Tech chap and a couple of friends and obviously being a tech nerd
13:30I also have four different phones in my pocket the iPhone the Samsung the pixel and also something else
13:36I can't tell you just yet
13:36but let me just show you a couple of photos and videos I took because I will say
13:40Between the s24 ultra the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the pixel 9 Pro XL in my experience
13:46The Samsung is still the zoom King which is actually kind of interesting given they all have five times telephoto lenses
13:52Why is it still blurry that's all the resolution we have making it bigger doesn't make it clearer it does on CSI Miami
14:01But one thing I was excited to test on the pixel was the new zoom enhance feature
14:05Straight out of a cheesy Hollywood action movie where they say, you know
14:09Zoom in enhance and then somehow they can see a license plate or the person's face technology that just didn't exist them
14:14But now with AI
14:16Actually, we are getting some zoom enhance action going on, but it's nothing
14:21Crazy, if I'm honest in the dozen or so times, I've tested this over the last couple of weeks
14:25I've never been particularly blown away by the results
14:28It's just a bit cleaner a little bit sharper doesn't suddenly bring the pixel up to the same standard as the s24
14:34Now we couldn't have a new phone release without talking about AI and in many ways pixel were actually ahead of the game with magic
14:40Eraser audio eraser the thing is though
14:42A lot of this cool eraser stuff can be done within the Google Photos app on any phone and using any picture
14:48It's not exclusive to getting a new one of these now
14:50What is new with the pixel 9?
14:52Series here is add me because this is like one of the headline new camera AI features and I want to give you a bit
14:58Of a live demonstration because it's me here mrs
15:00Tech chap and our friend Mara and I want to take a nice high quality picture with the rear cameras
15:05You take the first picture and then you switch the photographer. So I'm now gonna jump in the frame
15:09Mrs
15:09Tech chap's gonna come out and hold the camera and you've got this kind of ghostly AR guy to help frame where I should then
15:16Take the second photo and it composites them together and the results are pretty good
15:21It definitely got a few Wow's from the group, but it's not flawless
15:24You can sometimes see the stitching lines
15:26The perspective can be a little bit odd sometimes and it's also just a little bit of a faff to explain to your friends how this
15:31Works each time but still no manual photoshopping involved and as far as I'm aware
15:36There aren't any other phones that offer this kind of feature
15:38and I also really like this portrait light option where I can literally move a light source around the frame to kind of
15:44Highlight and expose different elements and it does a good job of making your portraits pop a little bit more but still looking natural and between
15:51Portrait and portrait light and unblur and zoom enhance and reframing and video boosting magic eraser audio eraser
15:58Add me you have so many options with pixel and Google Photos to tweak and play with and basically create entirely new images
16:05Right from your phone how much you want to use this stuff up to you
16:08But it is nice to have it there at your fingertips
16:10And it is still one of my absolute favorite phones for astro photography grab a gorilla pod stick it in your garden and four minutes
16:17Later, you've got this and with a bit of a lightroom touch up not too shabby, but also not significantly different to last year
16:24The pixel 9 pros can also now shoot in 8k
16:27But only when you have this video boost enabled now video boost was introduced on last year's pixel 8 series
16:33Although a few months after launch around Christmas time and this video boost can either help get you to a higher 8k resolution
16:38Or for better low-light video like a night video boost and essentially you shoot the video and then you get a
16:441080p lower quality kind of proxy preview file if you will and then it uploads the main video to Google servers and then their cloud
16:51AI does some wizardry to upscale and boost your video. It can take a bit of time
16:56It does of course need an internet connection
16:58But it certainly can give you better video than you would otherwise get just from the camera hardware of the pixel itself
17:03We've also got a couple of new apps one of which is screenshots and I just don't really understand this
17:09We have a screenshot album tab in Google Photos anyway
17:12But essentially this is like an AI optimized way of searching within all your receipts and screenshots
17:16Although for my train journey from London to Bristol, it thinks it's a flight
17:21So I'm departing from the airport of London Paddington
17:24But anyway more exciting is this new pixel studio app and this is kind of your one-stop shop for AI image generation
17:31Whether you want to create an entirely new image like a puppy using a laptop on a beach in sunset, which comes out
17:38Incredibly well, actually, I think it looks fantastic
17:40But I have been running into a few issues where it says it just can't make this yet
17:44So it can't deal with people yet. Although to be fair if you look at the top there
17:48It does say this is a preview. So hopefully this will get better with time
17:51But within the studio app, you can also open up your own photos and reimagine them
17:56Which is actually closer to Samsung sketch to image and it's a lot of fun to play around with and they have kept it quite
18:01Restricted fairly limited so you're not gonna come up with anything too edgy or dangerous or inappropriate
18:06But for reframing or adding some fun stuff to your photos definitely worth having a play with
18:13We also get a brand new weather app you get Google's Gemini advanced for free for a year and with Gemini live
18:19You can actually have a back-and-forth live chat
18:21Which is very similar to what you can do with the chat GPT app if you subscribe, although be wary that it can be wrong
18:28confidently wrong
18:29Unfortunately, there is no phone model called the pixel 9 Pro XL and finally Google promised seven years of OS updates
18:36Which I suppose will take us up to Android 21
18:39Maybe Android 20 because they count 14 as the first one
18:42Anyway, a lot of support with this and also of course being a pixel this will get the updates first including any fancy new AI
18:48features I
18:50Think the bigger question though is why not save several hundred dollars and just go for a regular pixel 9
18:55It's 300 pounds less than the 9 Pro XL and all you're really sacrificing is the bigger screen
19:00It's 6.3 inches same as the 9 Pro. We also get a little bit less RAM 12 gigs of the stuff
19:05We do miss out on the new thermal design so that could impact this stability in the performance
19:09The camera is also a bit of a downgrade. We don't get the new improved ultra wide
19:12We get the same 10 megapixel selfie as last year. You don't get the free year of Gemini advanced
19:18Slightly slower charging slightly different design with a matte aluminium edges rather than the glossy which you actually may prefer
19:25It's not a significant hardware difference between the regular pixel and the pro series with the pro in the pro XL
19:31Which is good because it means you can get a really good pixel phone
19:35For a lot less money for like 800 pounds ish
19:37But certainly if you want the biggest and the best pixel then you're gonna want the 9 Pro XL
19:42The tech chap is a YouTube channel based in the UK that provides technology news reviews and analysis
19:48The channel has over 1.48 million subscribers and 1k videos. And so that is the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL
19:55What do we think for me? It's an iterative update
19:58Object update upgrade. It's iterative. It's evolutionary
20:02I think if you're on a pixel 8 Pro or a pixel 7 Pro, it's probably not worth upgrading anything older
20:08Yeah, it's worth it
20:09If you are do you want sure but the current competition this faces will be replaced very quickly
20:14So it could be worth seeing how they compare although in favor of ordering one now
20:17Google do offer some quite good deals that they're actually offering some free storage upgrades
20:21But I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit disappointed by that g4 performance
20:25Yes, it's better
20:26But it's still not good enough and that's where I think we might have to wait for next year's pixel 10 with that new architecture
20:32Chip to get some proper upgrades. But what do you reckon you tempted to buy one?
20:36Let me know what you make of the pixel in the comments below. Thank you so much for watching guys
20:39If you enjoyed the video a cheeky like and subscribe would be fantastic. I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat